Air Force to Test Big Conventional Bomb

Published 7:00 pm, Monday, March 10, 2003

The Air Force scheduled a test Tuesday of the biggest conventional bomb in the U.S. military's arsenal, a 21,000-pound munition that could play a dramatic role in an attack on Iraq.

The bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, is guided to its target by satellite signals. This was to be its first live test.

The bomb is so powerful that it's detonation was expected to create a mushroom cloud visible for miles.

Separately, the Pentagon's No. 2 official said in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars that if President Bush decides to invade Iraq, it will be a "war of liberation" as well as an effort to rid Iraq of weapons banned by the United Nations.

"Those very weapons are the source of our concern," said Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. "The issue is not about Iraqi oil. If the United States had wanted access to Iraqi oil, we could have dropped our whole policy 12 years ago, lifted the sanctions and let Saddam Hussein have his weapons of mass destruction."

"No, if there's going to be a war, it will be a war to disarm Saddam's weapons of mass terror," he said. "But it will also be, like wars that you fought in, a war of liberation, a war to secure peace and freedom."

The U.S. military is putting the final pieces of combat power in place in anticipation of an order by Bush to attack Iraq and depose Saddam. More than 200,000 U.S. forces are now within striking range.

The Air Force bomb scheduled for its initial test Tuesday in Florida is much bigger than another conventional bomb. The next-biggest is the 15,000-pound BLU-82, dubbed the Daisy Cutter.

Jake Swinson, spokesman for the Air Armament Center at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., said there would be no onsite news coverage of the test for safety reasons, but an Air Force chase plane would take video that would be made available later to news organizations.

Other officials said the Air Force expected to have the bomb available for use in an Iraq war.

"If the warfighter wanted to use it, I'm sure we could make some available," Swinson said, adding that he had no information on whether or when the weapon might be used in combat.